Commentary: Tax hike is really a pay cut

“First, do no harm” is a maxim usually associated with medical practice. Don’t make matters worse by precipitous action, no matter how well-intentioned those actions may be.

I wish there were a similar maxim for economic policy.

During the budget standoff between Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Bruce Rauner, it may have seemed to many people as if nothing was being done to rectify the situation. Pleas were made by interest groups through social media and the legacy media to contact legislators to release funds for this or that state program. The cry was essentially for state elected officials to do something — anything — to get a budget passed.

So to appease those interest groups crying the loudest, the Legislature once again ignored the “harm” maxim and chose to inflict on the long-suffering citizens of Illinois what amounts to a pay cut, in the form of higher taxes.

And what are we getting in exchange for this action? Does anyone really believe that the additional money taken from your paycheck is going to be spent wisely? What evidence is there that the state is all of a sudden going to turn away from decades of profligacy and corruption now that lawmakers once again successfully bamboozled us?

Passage of the budget does not mean we’re out of the woods. Wednesday’s editorial noted that the passage of a budget hasn’t changed much in the way they operate in Springfield. According to the editorial, the budget still calls for $2 billion more in spending than anticipated in revenue, including the additional tax dollars looted from taxpayers.

I agree with just about everything in Wednesday’s editorial, with one caveat. The partial shift of blame on to voters overlooks one critical fact. Elections to the Legislature are effectively rigged by the way legislative districts are drawn. They are drawn to make as many safe districts for incumbents as possible. To have incumbent politicians draw legislative district boundaries, with full knowledge of the probable outcome in future elections, is a form of ballot stuffing.

Stuff as many Republicans in these districts and cram as many Democrats into those districts to keep incumbents’ seats safe from the wrath of constituents.

The only difference is that the stuffing is done long before elections. The only people who must face the voters of the state as a whole are those running for statewide office.

Gov. Pat Quinn got the heave-ho last time around largely because he endorsed a tax hike, and Gov. Rauner is likely to face the same fate because of the injury inflicted on many of our citizens by the budget standoff, along with Illinois’ sluggish economy.

Enough state representatives and senators are comfortably ensconced in safe districts to defy the governor, any governor, with near-impunity. Income tax hikes slow economic activity, since taxpayers will have less money to spend.

Simply put, the tax hike is a harm to the state’s economy.

So long as enough career politicians have little fear of being turned out of office, they are likely to continue to plunder taxpayers. Speaker Madigan quashed the latest attempt to wrest the powers to draw legislative districts away from the Legislature by having one of his minions file a motion in a friendly court.

By so doing, he revealed his contempt for the people of the state.

As a people, we’re not even allowed to consider the matter of redrawing legislative districts, let alone act on it.